On a good note, however, me and my colleagues have already been transferred to our new lodging place, and I couldn’t quite believe just what I saw when I arrived at the place, since it was close to being a hotel-like, or in fact, it is that way. I guess I just got used to how things were at our old lodging place, which is the reason why I couldn’t actually believe that this would be our new ‘barracks’. I had grown accustomed to the 1 toilet and bath in our old lodging place, and to think there were 8 of us there at one time. Now, there are only 2 occupants in each room, with the room having its own T&B. Well, you could say it is a huge improvement, and not to mention that there is a huge 40″ LCD TV (our dream TV) in the living room, and 2 smaller 20″ LCD TVs in the individual rooms.

I guess I would no longer be missing CSI episodes from now on. =)

I am on the field once again, and I feel as though I have lost the feel of how it is to be down and dirty out there. I will be presiding over a meeting later today, so that has gotten me quite on the edge right now. I am just trying to condition my mind, mantra-style. After all, my immediate supervisor has always said that, whenever I am in such a situation, just modulate my voice, (“lakasan mo lang boses mo”) and surely they will not object to whatever you say, after all, you are the master of your presentation. =)

One thing that has gotten me thinking is this new phenomenon right now, the e-cigarette. Our office, being a no-smoking area has now seen these popping out, with colleagues having a puff or two while indoors, in meetings, and the like. It has made me wonder, why DO we post “No Smoking” signs? Is it because of the smoke? or the ashes? If it were the latter, then I guess this new gadget would be the solve-all for smokers who do not want to be inconvenienced by going out of the office to indulge in their pastime. If it were the former, however, I guess these people have to think twice all the more. Or they could always just smoke, but please, don’t exhale. =)

As an update, my colleagues and I asked for an audience with our chief adviser Friday of the previous week, just so we could be updated on the goings on, or if ever the change we are waiting for is still alive. Three weeks. “Expect some changes in three weeks,” was what we got.

At least my immediate supervisor can now get his haircut. =)

One’s good and untainted name is one possession that no amount of material wealth could ever equal. And yet look at how other politicians despise being linked to her during the election period. I wonder how she sleeps at night, knowing that this is her legacy.

As for the current president, it is time to walk the talk my friend. The people will be watching.

While you yourself have said it, that..and let me quote, “While it is apparent that Arroyo is not faultless…”

IMHO, by not answering that question head on, and I do believe that it is answerable with a yes or a no (you said so yourself with that quoted statement above), by playing it safe, and making a roundabout way of saying that, he needed evidence to prove it (if indeed he believed that GMA does have something to answer for), why not say it outright? Which leads us back to the balls issue, or the lack thereof. It was not as if he were asked IF GMA is guilty. He was asked if GMA HAD issues she had to answer for when she steps down. And once again, I’d have to say you’d be effing blind not to see how she has made good use of her “competence” and god-given talent to make a mockery of our democracy. Look at where Joc-Joc Bolante is now at? or Mikey Arroyo, the champion of the security guards’ causes?

Where does Gibo figure in all of this, you say? He is smack right in the middle of it. I’d rather he take a fucking stand.

For all Gibo’s supposed “competence,” why not make a stand for himself, instead of playing it safe for fear of angering her benefactor. I am not really a die-hard Noynoy fan, and he has his own share of shortcomings. On the Hacienda Luisita issue, I’d rather not comment, as I do have to humbly admit that I do not have an in depth knowledge on the real situation, and what really went on. Perhaps you’d like to educate me some more on the facts of the case at hand. He may be guilty, he may not be. Like you, I am not out to convince you to see the yellow light too.

On the Disarmament of Mindanao / Failure as the Defense Secretary: While you are correct that this issue has been a long standing one, Gibo had in his hands a mighty tool with which to showcase his “galing at talino”. And what did he do with it? Try and convince Toto Mangundadatu to not break the status quo, and withdraw his candidacy instead. Why, might I ask, a person of his supposed caliber and skills, would ask that of Toto Mangundadatu? If you don’t see it, I do. He was too much of a chickenshit to do anything about it. The Ampatuans delivered for her benefactor an election ago, so here he goes again tiptoeing so as not to anger his benefactor. I mean, cmon, why even consider asking him to not run???

Gimme one good reason why he would ask that of him?

While it may be sad to see our people make a mockery of Ninoy and Cory as they do now, in an effort to discredit Noynoy, I am not voting solely on the consideration of his parentage, but rather on his character. I know times have changed, and long gone are the days that we have overlooked that Cory did not possess the “galing at talino” to run this country. We were so hell bent on removing a dictator, that we conveniently accepted that indeed she might not be the perfect person for the job. While some of us now are quick to ridicule at her inability to solve the land reform issue, but hey, it could have been worse,so much worse. She could have been so “capable”. She could have been equipped with the right “skills” and “experience” for the job.

Then her name could have been “GMA”. And I shudder at the thought of that.

The 3.5in floppy disk, once an icon of the computer age, is to be cleared from the shelves of PC World as demand for disks plummets.

Fletcher’s article PC World announces the end of the floppy disk was published online last 30 Jan 2007.

I cannot remember the last time I used a 3-in floppy disk (a.k.a. diskette). In like manner, I have not seen desktop computers and laptops with built-in floppy disk drives these days except for the CPUs at the Social Security System (SSS), the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), and United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) offices. I would have to assume that these offices specifically ordered them from suppliers with such specs because their respective offices require their clients to submit data saved in these diskettes. What happened to the portable, stable thumb drives that replaced these floppy disks? Aptly, these offices should update their computerized system to be compatible with a USB device before the supply of floppy disks ran out in the market.

In my humble opinion, parents prepare us to face the real world but it is our decisions that make us the person we are now. Hence, make the right decisions because when we do, we make God, our parents, and ourselves proud. So for a more meaningful life, seek God, live each day trying the best we could to be pleasing in God’s eyes, learn from failures, and find others with similar values.

Now, on with my rant for this morning. As I said, we got ourselves two Blackberry Storm 2 units last Christmas. I could honestly say that I did lack in doing background checks on the performance of the unit, or a more thorough review, as I may have missed out problems regarding the unit until I just recently I have experienced the problem firsthand, only to find out that there were a lot of complaints already on the web. I do remember googling for “Blackberry Storm 2 problems” but somehow didn’t find enough convincing results to deter me from purchasing them. I guess I was too excited and impulsive for my own good.

One thing I don’t like about the unit is that, unlike Nokia and other more common brands, to access the net on the unit, you would have to enroll in the Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) to be able to do that, which you would need to pay on top of your regular mobile phone plan, whereas if it were, say a Nokia E72 phone, I would just be able to browse the net while just consuming my mobile plan consumable amount. Had I known that were the case, I wouldn’t have been so optimistic. Once again, it was a case of leaping before you looked. LoL. I guess I am learning from the school of hard knocks.

Another thing that has been eating up at me at the moment is the problem on dropped calls. When I went home for the Christmas holidays, I started experiencing dropped calls at the 20-30 second time duration of a call, which is so annoying to say the least!!! And as I googled the keywords “Blackberry Storm 2″ + “call failed”, guess what I found…there were already a lot of complaints on this issue, even from people locked up to a particular mobile carrier.

For now, I am at a loss as to how to solve this problem. I should just have gotten an Iphone instead. Grrrrr

Arriving in Dumaguete via a Cebu Pacific flight earlier today, Borski and I were pleasantly surprised that Dumaguete (well technically, the airport is in Sibulan town) now has a baggage carousel in its arrival area. Yey! At least it won’t anymore be that barriotic. Lolz.

The instruction above is for me (and yours, too, if you want). I actually saved this one-liner in my drafts last year yet, no succeeding sentences right after that. I have not had the time to tinker around dailyhappythoughts’ dashboard since November 29, 2008 until yesterday morning, right after I watched Obama’s inaugural speech in CNN. The first two weeks of this year felt like it is already the last two weeks of every quarter in a year.  This is not unlike any last two weeks of every quarter in terms of reports generation. The similarity ends there though, at least for the tasks that need to be done . Understandable.  The level of responsibility and degree of complexity in decision making, analysis of data, and status updating of the actions items to mention a few are much more than the quarter-end experience — simply because this is for all the four quarters combined a.k.a “entire year”. Hence, my little “me” time started tonight with watching Tayong Dalawa (uhuh! you read that right. I watch TV soap operas but is an avid fan only during the introduction phase, with the exception of Pangako sa yo), then eating guava, and finally writing this.

Now that the vibrancy of my 13-day vacation is starting to stagger away from me, I’ve decided to fortify the implementation of that which is written above in italics. I’ve learned early in life that it is a jungle out there. “Dress appropriately” as what one of Velvet TV shows’ teaser say. I would say I’d like to dress myself with positive attitude and habits. I will dress myself with all the positive talk that will produce the most productive of good for me. More often that not, people will always strip you of what is good. What’s more surprising is that they are sometimes the person(s) close to you or the ones you least expect it to be. Hence, the need to regularly deposit to our happy memories bank account, just like our savings account, so that when tough times arrive, there’s always some  happy memories to pluck from the back of our minds, look back and color our stormy day. Most importantly, the good thing of living in this world is the presence of our Almighty Father and the comfort of knowing that He has already planned what’s in store for us. So there’s nothing more to do but move one step at a time forward.

What better way to start the year right than writing in our hearts that every day is the best day of the year. Oh! And keep your fork!